


To The Void With It

by aban_asaara



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_asaara/pseuds/aban_asaara
Summary: Things—and Carver and Merrill—at last fall into place.





	To The Void With It

**Author's Note:**

> The way you said “I love you” prompt #30: Too quick, mumbled into your scarf, requested by [Sasskarian](sasskarian.tumblr.com). :D

Maker damn it. So much time spent scanning Kirkwall’s streets in hopes of spotting Merrill, and the day it happens, she catches _him_ staring instead, half-convinced his mind has layered her image over some other elven girl browsing the market stalls.

“Carver,” Merrill singsongs in that Dalish accent of hers while he’s still blinking down at her. She’s waving at him now, head tilted to one side, the tips of her ears reddened by the cold. “Oh, humans don’t think it’s rude to come up to people they know in public, do they?” she adds, skin reddening prettily under the swirls of _vallaslin_ on her cheeks.

“No, no, of course not,” he blurts out, then musters some aplomb again and tries the crooked smile that never failed to make Peaches giggle and bat her lashes back in Lothering. “I’m happy you did.” He nods towards the basket on her arm and catches a glimpse of cabbage and a sprig of green onions; the color is unusually vibrant amidst Kirkwall’s expanse of stone and brick, even dourer now in the winter months. “Grocery shopping?”

If his technique has any effect on Merrill, she doesn’t let it show. “All done. I was just on my way home now.”

He chuckles. “To the alienage? Isn’t that the wrong way?” he says, then kicks himself mentally when the blush creeps all the way to the tips of her ears and the corners of her mouth drop down a tiny bit. “I mean, I—uh, I think I know a shortcut. I could walk you home, if you wanted?”

The smile stretches back across her face again, setting her eyes alight with a moss-green glimmer. “That would be _lovely_ , Carver. I’ve been having such a hard time finding my way around since a guard confiscated the ball of twine Varric gave me.”

He snorts. “Maker forbid they actually do something useful instead.”

“Well, that seems awfully counterproductive, doesn’t it? The more I hear about the Maker, the less I understand why people even worship him,” Merrill says, her face scrunched up in confusion.

Carver does his best not to look too amused as he explains his meaning, and together they walk under the city’s gray skies, tendrils of wind sneaking into the collar and sleeves of his too-light coat. Despite the chill, the season never quite commits to winter here in Kirkwall; the snow melts the instant it meets the flagstones, if it’s not rain instead, turning to ice on the streets. He adjusts his scarf, then tucks his hands under his armpits, feeling a pang for his father’s lambskin gloves, left behind in Lothering. “Do you miss winter in Ferelden, too?” he asks, casting Merrill a glance. “ _Real_ winter, not just freezing rain and this pathetic excuse for snow.”

The tied strands of hair on her head sway as she nods. “I miss the silence of the forest in winter, how pretty the foxes and hares were in their white coats. And I miss the food, most of all: we’d eat hearth cakes with halla cheese and currant preserves or spiced applesauce. All I was able to find here is hard, stinky cheese,” she adds, sniffing.

Carver smiles. “I’ve never tried halla cheese or hearth cakes. We’d make meat pie and roasts, though. It was the _best_. Now we’re struggling to scrounge up enough money for regular meals after Athenril takes her cut.” He snaps his mouth shut, biting the inside of his cheeks. _No one likes a grouser_ , he can hear his sister say—not that she’s one to talk when she’s making eyes at the broodiest of them all, but complaining is hardly going to help him win Merrill’s affections. “Anyway, the worst part isn’t so much the food as Gamlen just sort of glaring at us the whole time we’re eating,” he finishes, trying for a laugh.

“You should come to my place, then,” Merrill says, so matter-of-factly he’s not sure whether she’s joking or not. “I’ll cook for you.”

He runs a hand over his face, feeling it burn under his palm. “It’s, uh. Don’t worry about it, Merrill. But thank you.”

“I don’t know if it’s a human thing or a city thing to always want to manage on your own, but it’d be only fair after everything you and Hawke have done for me, isn’t it? And I haven’t quite gotten the hang of cooking just for myself yet, anyway. I always end up with too much food. My neighbors won’t take the food I offer them, so I’ve been feeding stray cats instead, but they always look a bit cross when I do. The neighbors, I mean, not the cats. The cats always seem delighted.”

“The cats have the right of it,” Carver says. Merrill stops and smiles up at him, her eyes glimmering above reddened cheeks. Behind her, the bare branches of that big oak tree sway in the wintry wind, though the chill that settled into his bones is now a distant thing as warmth unfolds in his chest instead. “I’ll—think about it. Thank you, Merrill.”

“I mean it, you know. Besides, I’d love some company sometime. And thank you for walking me— _oh!_ ”

Carver just barely has time to grab Merrill’s arm when she slips. She whirls around in a half-circle, then thuds face first into his chest, her small hands clinging to his sleeve and scarf, the basket caught awkwardly between them. He holds her against himself for the span of a breath or two, not daring to move; his own balance is precarious on the sheet of ice underfoot, and—well, he doesn’t want the moment to end.

“That was a close one,” he finally says, chuckling. “You’re alright?”

He can smell the woodsmoke scent of her hair when Merrill lifts her head to look at him. “Thanks to you, Carver,” she answers, and he could swear her cheeks are even redder now under the lines of _vallaslin_. “See you soon?”

He’s grinning, too wide. “I hope so.” He watches her as she rights herself and slowly slides her leather boots along the sheet of ice, one hand stretched out for balance while the other clings to the handle of her basket. He sees the ice now, dark and treacherous on the flagstones of the alienage, near invisible in the shade of the towering tree above them. “Be care—”

The alienage zips past him in a blur of brown and gray, and then he’s on his arse, knocking Merrill off her feet before he can even stop it. She lands square into his lap while her basket flies off, potatoes and onions rolling all over the ground.

He starts laughing when he realizes that she’s laughing, too, black hair swaying around her cheeks as she tosses her head back. “Creators, I am _so_ sorry,” she says, struggling to disentangle her legs from his.

“No, that was me,” he laughs, doing his best to steady her as she attempts to rise up to her feet again. After a moment she decides on sliding on gloved hands and knees towards her toppled basket instead, and Carver does the same, gathering the scattered vegetables. “Maker, look at us.”

A face or two are peering out at them from the windows of the alienage, but Merrill is laughing again, and Carver forgets to feel self-conscious. He drops the last string of garlic into her basket, then manages to pull himself back on his feet by clinging to one of the oak’s large, gnarled roots. He half-sits on it before stretching his hand out for Merrill and helping her up as well.

They stay like this for a moment while they catch their breath, still laughing, Merrill standing between his knees, snowflakes sticking whole to the black of her hair like stars in the night sky.

She hasn’t let go of his hand.

Maker, but he wants to kiss her. It would be so easy to tilt his mouth towards her and close the few inches separating their lips—

To the Void with it. He does.

A small sound of surprise drops from her parted mouth into his, but her hand then curls around his jaw and she kisses him back, with more purpose than he would’ve expected from sweet, easily flustered Merrill. Her lips are soft, warm despite the cold, and the warmth under his breastbone pools into his belly, coiling itself tight at the barest brush of her tongue against his.

Their mouths part, moments later, and it takes a second or two for the blur around him to settle back into the alienage. A shy smile is playing on her lips as Merrill looks at him, her breaths coming a little harder now. Carver barely remembers his own name.

She drops her gaze. “Oh, your scarf.” The second-hand, moth-bitten scarf hangs loose about his shoulders now; she pulls her hand free from his to loop it back around neck, once, twice, then secures it into a loose knot and pats it down over his chest. “Here,” she says, smiling up at him as she tucks one strand of hair behind her tapered ear.

 _I love you,_ he thinks, the words falling into his mind suddenly, and he only realizes he’s blurted them out into his scarf when Merrill blinks up at him, still smiling. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” he answers with a shake of his head, too quickly. He can’t quite convince himself he didn’t mean it. “It was nothing.”

“Alright, then. So, does that mean you’re going to come in and have dinner with me now?”

It sounds almost like a challenge the way she says it, with her eyes shining and the corners of her mouth curled up, one he’s all too happy to take up. He breaks into a grin, so stupidly big his cheeks hurt. “I—yeah. Yes, that’d be lovely.”

She wraps her hand around his and pulls him up to his feet, then heads towards her little house in the corner of the alienage, basket tucked under her arm. The fingertips of her free hand wriggle at her hip, and a burst of light, easily dismissable as the briefest flash of sunlight through winter clouds, cracks the sheet of ice into myriad fragments on the flagstones.

Carver follows, the chips of ice cracking under his steps, the grin so wide on his face it might just split in two.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://aban-asaara.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
